sendler2112 wrote:Very interesting. It is misleading if total energy is always quoted as thermal. So how do we correlate the total electrical production from your graph with the total energy from mine? Obviously all thermal manufacturing and most transportation and heat is not electrical so the total energy consumed will be much more than the total electrical.

Depends.

Using primary energy has its uses. let's say for CO2 emissions or usage of resources, because it counts what you "burn".

If you want to show the usage / "usefulness" of energy I suggest using the "Endenergieverbrauch" (gross final energy consumption???). This also has its limits because 1 liter of diesel is counted as 10kWh, the same as 10kWh of electricity. But for running a car 10kWh of electricity is compareable to 40kWh of Diesel.

There is also the option to compare "Nutzenergie" (useful energy???) where you would compare 1kWh of heat to another 1kWh of heat or 1kWh of mechanical energy to drive a car to 1kWh of mechanical energy to drive a car with another engine. But this is difficult and also has its disadvantages because oyu do not see the efficiency of energy production.

Important is that you know what you look at.

It is not illegal or "false data" to count 1kWh nuclear electricity as 3kWh nuclear power, it is just how counting nuclear power production is defined for "primary energy" data.

The point is, that 1kWh primary energy of solar or wind energy can replace much more than 1kWh of nuclear or coal in power plants and also much more than 1kWh of oil if used in a electric car or in a thermal heating pump for room heating.

So sure, if you look at the whole picture (which is a good thing) solar+wind is still just a small part, either in Germany and also worldwide. As nuclear has always been just a small part. So there is still a long way to go, but it is possible and not so difficult as many people predict.

We have lots of analysis about the German grid and today at almost 40% RE share there is NO urgent need for storage, the opposite is true, actually there is not much money in the arbitrage market (buy cheap -> store -> sell expensive).

Most experts say that we neen more storage at around 80% RE share, before that we need more flexible thermal power plants (which we already retrofit) and a morre powerful grid.

what you do after 80% RE is up to debate. There are several options. A very intersting one would be a large grid, but there are others, too. You most likely would not use battery storage for 24h storage capacity. Batteries (today) are much better suited to store for 30-60 minutes. Germany now has around 200TWh of storage capacity in methane and we are adding another 140TWh. Some people say making hdyrogen or methan from electricity and using them in gas power plants / fuel cells / trucks would be a wise option. Efficiency is low and in case of methane you have the end of pipe problem with CO2 , but it is an option...

Today there are several projects in Germany to build better PEM electrolysis systems in the MW class that can operate highly flexible and with better efficiency. Still very expensive, but solar PV has been very expensive just 15 years ago, too...

Last edited by Cephalotus on Nov 06 2017 4:02pm, edited 2 times in total.

sendler2112 wrote:Yeah renewables are up to 2.8% of world energy. 2/3's of which is biomass for heat and cooking. We can have a party now that solar plus wind broke 1% with additions of 2017.

And who doesn't like a party?

Solar works fine up to 15% of the electrical grid. 40% of electric with 100's of TWh of ev's running V2G if we ever get that far. Which is still only 20% of total energy.

I'd put that at closer to 50% solar-PV but it's in the ballpark. As more and more transportation becomes electric, electrical generation will account for a larger and larger percentage of overall energy.

In October 2017 wind share was 26.9% and solar share 4.9%, together 31.8%.

In 10/29 it was 56.5% wind and 4.2% solar, so more than 60% "intermittents" for the whole country.

During sunny summer days solar power share can be higher than 20% without any problems for the grid. significantly more will be possible without storage. Winter is what limits our anual solar power share, but not all countries are as cloudy and dark during winter times as Germany which has a solar irradiation comparable to Alaska.

There are countries with significantly higher RE share, but often this is mostly hydropower.

In October 2017 wind share was 26.9% and solar share 4.9%, together 31.8%.

In 10/29 it was 56.5% wind and 4.2% solar, so more than 60% "intermittents" for the whole country.

During sunny summer days solar power share can be higher than 20% without any problems for the grid. ....

As i previously said when you mentioned this...
1) Your figures are AVERAGES and do not mention those periods where the combined wind and solar cantributed less than 5% of the power demand.
2) Germany has over 100 GW of wind and solar generation available to support a maximum demand of approx 75GW peak
.......it also has another 90+ GW of Thermal generation (Nuclear, coal, gas, etc) also available !
3) Germany's grid, is interlinked with multiple other countries (8) and is constantly balancing surplus generation capacity and demand spikes with many of them. So Germanys grid is not likely to see problems...
HOWEVER... most of those interlinked countries are seeing problems due to the high fluctuations in the supply from Germany causing voltage and frequency variations to their own grids. Many of them are now having to install systems to isolate their grids to protect them.
Hence, the reality is that Germanys RE generation IS causing grid problems....but not necessarily in Germany itself !https://www.instituteforenergyresearch. ... ric-grids/
Andhttp://reason.com/archives/2017/03/21/t ... rgy-crisis
If the experience of Germanys RE development shows us anything, it is that Wind and Solar power generation produces huge problems and Costs that are yet to be resolved.

Last edited by Hillhater on Nov 06 2017 10:23pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hillhater wrote:2) Germany has over 100 GW of wind and solar generation available to support a maximum demand of approx 75GW peak

Sounds about right. With intermittent generation, you overbuild.

3) Germany's grid, is interlinked with multiple other countries (8) and is constantly balancing surplus generation capacity and demand spikes with many of them. So Germanys grid is not likely to see problems...

Yep. Interconnection solves many of the problems with intermittent generation.

HOWEVER... most of those interlinked countries are seeing problems due to the high fluctuations in the supply from Germany causing voltage and frequency variations to their own grids. Many of them are now having to install systems to isolate their grids to protect them.

They already have the ability to isolate their grids. What's new is they are adding systems like this:

These provide voltage and frequency stabilization functions, as well as more traditional peak shaving. They not only allow more intermittent generation, they allow the older baseload and peaker plants to run much closer to their design limits, allowing more useful generation without adding capacity.

Hillhater wrote:
1) Your figures are AVERAGES and do not mention those periods where the combined wind and solar cantributed less than 5% of the power demand.

An average includes all periods, that's what an average is. Sometimes Generation of fossil power plants is lower, sometimes higher, as it was for 100 years. If you care about fuel consumption and CO2 emissions and air pollution the average is a good indicator.

2) Germany has over 100 GW of wind and solar generation available to support a maximum demand of approx 75GW peak

So what? Sooner or later it will bei 200-300GW.

.......it also has another 90+ GW of Thermal generation (Nuclear, coal, gas, etc) also available !

That's why we do not need new storage systems in Germany to build more RE.

3) Germany's grid, is interlinked with multiple other countries (8) and is constantly balancing surplus generation capacity and demand spikes with many of them. So Germanys grid is not likely to see problems...

This is what a grid is for. Would be stupid to have it and not use it, wouldn't it? Denmark in the North has a higher wind share than Germany. Austria and Switzerland have pump storage capacity and benefit from the RE surplus in Germany, France needs the German grid much more (because they are not able to meet their own peak demand) than Germany needs France, Benelux likes to buy cheap power and throttle their own flexible gas power generation...
It's mainly Poland and the Czech republic that have "problems" with current flowing "through" their grid from North and East Germany to the South. After some new built North-East-South connections (that we need for shut down the last remaining nuclear power plants) this will be reduced. For historic reasons the East-West grid connection in Germany is not as strong as they could/should be.

Fritz Vahrenholt is a global warming denier and a nuclear power lobbyist.

He earns money with lying.

"...One way to cope with this volatility is to establish a backup system based on fossil fuels with dramatic economic and environmental consequences..."

This "backup system" is already here, as you mentioned above. There is some extra cost envolved in keeping it running for shorter hours per year and to upgrade it to handle higher dynamics, but this cost is much cheaper than to built storage capacity.

"...There are a certain number of myths in the energy industry. One of them is that we need more flexibility in the system to integrate renewables, like energy storage, interruptible loads or backup power plants. That’s a myth. We have a lot more flexibility than we need and a huge amount of potential..."

"...We are well on track to having a system that can accommodate between 70-80% renewable energy without the need for more flexibility options. What we already have should be able to meet our needs until 2030 or even 2040...."

This is not some incompetent idiot that want to sell books and gain media coverage with his nonsense but the CEO of that transmission company that has to handle the highest share of RE already.

These provide voltage and frequency stabilization functions, as well as more traditional peak shaving. They not only allow more intermittent generation, they allow the older baseload and peaker plants to run much closer to their design limits, allowing more useful generation without adding capacity.

So now each manufacturing plant must be responsible for their own micro grid if they want to stay in business. Shipped in on container vessels from China. It will be nice for Germany when the northern passage opens for good. Wouldn't it make sense to require by law that electrical generation facilities must garantee their production to maintain a stabile grid?
.
Thinking of scale again: BYD boasts 250MWh of storage installed world wide so far. This is 1/4 of 1 hour's production from 1 thermal plant. We need something non carbon, non intermittent and dispatchable, to balance the grid until we can build out 100TWh's of storage and elecric to fuel conversion.

In your opinion, does the answer by any chance happen to be future gen nuclear?

If Germany can achieve 70-80% RE share all without major changes to their grid then that would be very impressive and a good demonstration of what can be done. Something needs to be done and now. Ideally, global carbon emissions will prove to have already peaked and we can look forward to gradual reductions. That won't make things all rosy, but it could stop things going *really* bad. Countries like Germany should be applauded for pioneering this new RE technology when it is relatively expensive/troublesome/limited benefit.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dimplex-Electr ... B01J3RQPK4On the topic of renewable electric and wind energy I remember staying at a hotel in Holland about 10 years ago that had off peak electric storage heaters installed throughout the hotel. Of course there is a lot of wind generation there and the heaters would use off peak energy to store heat and release it whenever it was needed.

Hillhater wrote:2) Germany has over 100 GW of wind and solar generation available to support a maximum demand of approx 75GW peak

Sounds about right. With intermittent generation, you overbuild.....

NO amount of overbuilding can prevent intermittent supply, or even total failure , from wind or solar.
Infact the more surplus capacity you add just agrivates the problem of balancing a steady supply using other sources.
As Germany shows, you have to retain 100% thermal backup generation to ensure continuity of supply.

Punx0r wrote:In your opinion, does the answer by any chance happen to be future gen nuclear?

If Germany can achieve 70-80% RE share all without major changes to their grid then that would be very impressive and a good demonstration of what can be done. Something needs to be done and now. Ideally, global carbon emissions will prove to have already peaked and we can look forward to gradual reductions. That won't make things all rosy, but it could stop things going *really* bad. Countries like Germany should be applauded for pioneering this new RE technology when it is relatively expensive/troublesome/limited benefit.

I have no idea what future developments may offer.
At the moment i am more concerned with what todays chosen options may doing to our immediate future.
Germanys grid has already had to be extensively ( expensively) modified to acommodate the RE additions.
It has also been proposed that if Europe is to widely install RE , there will need to be a "Eurogrid" built , estimated at $400 + billion.

sendler2112 wrote:So now each manufacturing plant must be responsible for their own micro grid if they want to stay in business.

No. Not sure where you got that claim. Strawman?

Shipped in on container vessels from China. It will be nice for Germany when the northern passage opens for good. Wouldn't it make sense to require by law that electrical generation facilities must garantee their production to maintain a stabile grid?

Heck no. That would outlaw pretty much every form of power out there.

Nuclear power? San Onofre has proven that they can't guarantee production. Natural gas? The problems with the Eliso Canyon storage field means that natural gas plants in LA can't guarantee their production.

What makes more sense is that UTILITIES guarantee a certain level of reliability; that's all people (and companies) care about. (And given that the amount of renewables has climbed in concert with grid reliability, that is what's happening now.)

Thinking of scale again: BYD boasts 250MWh of storage installed world wide so far. This is 1/4 of 1 hour's production from 1 thermal plant.

Yep. And ramping up fast. And they are now competing with AES, Hitachi, Ionex and A123. Pretty soon they will represent 6 hours of output from 1 thermal plant - which means that one GW-level load following thermal plant can be shut down (or, more likely, allowed to retire as planned.) Then they will represent 6 hours of output from 10 thermal plants. Then 100.

Hillhater wrote:NO amount of overbuilding can prevent intermittent supply, or even total failure , from wind or solar.

The facts don't support that. Wind and solar have been climbing exponentially - and the incidence of "total failure" has gone down. A combination of storage, load aggregation and fast-ramp peakers has actually made the grid more reliable with time, even as the prevalence of solar and wind has increased.

Hillhater wrote:NO amount of overbuilding can prevent intermittent supply, or even total failure , from wind or solar.

The facts don't support that. Wind and solar have been climbing exponentially - and the incidence of "total failure" has gone down. A combination of storage, load aggregation and fast-ramp peakers has actually made the grid more reliable with time, even as the prevalence of solar and wind has increased.

In the leading RE example we have been using ..Germany.... They had a situation of less than 5% Wind/solar available,.. just a few days before they set their record 60% RE power for the day,
Without the 100% backup from thermals, and sucking on the grid interlinks, they would have had a major power failure.
That happens several times every year.
Thats OK , until some other Euro break up like Brexit happens , or some shitty politician decides to declare independence or simply pull the interlink plug.. (as Putin did with Gas supply) .. then its not so comfortable.
And more for my interest , it would not be workable for Australia....we dont even link grids between east aand west coast !
100% thermal backup is a rediculous concept..expensive and criminally wasteful, ( it would be much smarter/cleaner/cheaper for Germany not to shut down their Nuclear plants, but their politics overrides common sense and financial logic.

Hillhater wrote:In the leading RE example we have been using ..Germany.... They had a situation of less than 5% Wind/solar available,.. just a few days before they set their record 60% RE power for the day.

Great example. And their country has one of the most reliable grids out there (see above.) So here we see a case where introductions of massive amounts of solar and wind do not cause problems; indeed, the improvements to the grid to accommodate such sources seem to make blackouts and other service interruptions less likely.

Without the 100% backup from thermals, and sucking on the grid interlinks, they would have had a major power failure.

And without all that solar and wind they'd be paying a lot more than they do now.

And more for my interest , it would not be workable for Australia....we dont even link grids between east aand west coast !

It would certainly be workable. You just need to decide what sort of backup you want. Battery? Hydro? Peaker? The solution will be different for every location.

100% thermal backup is a rediculous concept..expensive and criminally wasteful

I agree. A combination of storage, hydro and peaker thermal plants is a much better plan.

Bill...you can keep believing whatever you like, keep your fingers in your ears, and your eyes covered,...but the reality remains, that more solar and wind simply increases costs, makes existing grids unstable, requires impossible and impractical amounts of either thermal backup or battery ( pumped hydro can never be enough).
Show me a country that has introduced a significant % of wind and solar wher the price of power has reduced ?
One thing to take from the Google Talks video..
RE is like religeon, or a cult, you get converted to It, and no amount of facts or logical discussion can change your thinking.!.....either way.
So , be comfortable with your choices.

Last edited by Hillhater on Nov 08 2017 6:13pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hillhater wrote:but the reality remains, that more solar and wind simply increases costs, makes existing grids unstable, requires impissible and impractical amounts of either thermal backup or battery ( pumped hydro can never be enough.

Except in reality (i.e. what has been demonstrated in the real world) renewables penetration has been going up significantly AND grid stability has gone up.

. . .religeon, or a cult, you get converted to It, and no amount of facts or logical discussion can change your thinking.!.....either way.

That's very true.

This discussion has been going on for pages and pages now. Sounds like you've got your beliefs, and that's fine. But the bottom line is that renewables are increasing their share of generation, and this will continue because they are cheap (which utilities like) and clean (which people like.) There will be problems, of course. Since renewables are intermittent and non-dispatchable, you can't use them like you use a combined cycle gas plant; they take more work to use them effectively. But because they are so cheap, it's cost-effective to do the work to get the cheaper power. There will also be a lot of resistance and disinformation from people who make their money from fossil fuels, because no one likes to see their investment lose value. But that's the way of the world - some investments work and some don't; knowing the difference is the key.

A lot of people here already have solar or solar + storage, and they know it works. They don't need studies or carefully tailored news stories to convince them one way or another, because the proof that it works is on their roof and in their garage. They don't need to be in a "cult" to flip a switch and get power from a free source. And these people are making up a larger and larger share of utility customers.

So again, believe whatever you like. Believe that renewables make the grid unstable or require things that are "impissible." As renewables grow and make up an ever-increasing share of our electrical generation, I imagine those beliefs will change into something else - perhaps a belief that it's all a lie, or the government is covering something up. And that's also fine. Because the important part is that renewables are displacing fossil fuel generation, and fewer people (and animals, and plants) will die as a result. And that's a good result no matter what your beliefs.

Denmark’s grid delivers superior quality – at discount prices
From 100 per cent coal-fired power plants:
Thirty years ago, virtually all the electricity in Denmark was produced in a few central power plants. Some of these coal-fired plants are now closed and most
of the others have been converted to biomass.

To 56 per cent green production:
In the last few decades, 5,000 wind turbines have been erected, covering the equivalent of 42 per cent of electricity consumption. Add to this the several undred smaller combined heat and power (CHP) plants and almost 100,000 solar cells. In all, 56 per cent of Danish electricity consumption is covered by green electricity

Look at page 3 for cost of the grid including stability services, vs the quality of service. ......
DK and GER are in the good end of the graph - France is not in the top!

BTW: All the pages about smart-meter rollout are actually happening. I just had mine replaced 2 weeks ago.